Chapter 130The Prohibitive Subsystem: iteki and Negative Directives

130.1 Place in the directive system

The prohibitive is the negative member of the directive system. A command not to act is formed with a prohibitive adverb in front of the predicate, most often iteki ‘don't’ in the Saru and Chitose dialects, answering to an English negative imperative. Nakagawa groups iteki and its dialect counterparts as 禁止の語句 ‘prohibition words’, and Bugaeva glosses the construction as proh before the verb Nakagawa (2024: 424); Bugaeva (2012: 497). In the aligned Hokkaido corpus iteki is the frequent, default form, with 1278 tokens ‹corpus-confirmed›.

The propositional negator somo ‘not’ denies a declarative clause; the prohibitive adverb withdraws a directive addressed to the hearer. In the typology of standard negation, which is defined over declarative verbal main clauses, the prohibitive falls outside the core and into the separate domain of the negative imperative (Miestamo 2005). The two systems are formally distinct and can co-occur (below).

The affirmative imperative and the politeness morphology that the prohibitive shares with it are set out in Chapter 114 (Imperative and Prohibitive (Directive Mood)); hortative and optative directives in Chapter 115 (Hortative, Optative, and Cohortative). The bare prohibitive places iteki at the left edge of the predicate phrase, ahead of the whole verb phrase rather than immediately before the verb:

130.2 Forms and dialect distribution

The prohibitive adverb has several Hokkaido shapes. Nakagawa reports iteki for Saru, Chitose, Horobetsu, and Abuta; itekke for Shizunai, Samani, and Tokachi; etekke for Shiranuka, Bihoro, and Tokachi; and eciki or ecikki for Ishikari Nakagawa (2024: 424). The forms differ regionally and carry no reported difference in meaning; Tokachi appears for both itekke and etekke in the source. The distribution rests on one witness form per locality and is best read as indicative rather than as a closed conditioning map ‹consensus›.

130.3 Position and the imperative verb

Nakagawa states the positional rule more loosely for the prohibitive than for somo: iteki and its counterparts may stand anywhere before the verb, whereas somo is in principle directly before the verb form Nakagawa (2024: 424); Satō (2008: 124). The latitude follows from function. Standard negation supplies polarity to a finite verb; the prohibitive adverb contributes directive force to the predicate phrase as a whole, and so occupies its left edge.

In the bare prohibitive the addressee is the understood S or A argument and the verb carries no subject index. An object may still be indexed on the verb, as in iteki e yan ‘do not eat it’, where the directive subject is unexpressed and the third-person object is borne by the verb Bugaeva (2012: 497). The person-marking facts thus run parallel to the affirmative imperative.

The prohibitive shares the politeness scale of the affirmative imperative. A plain verb is the most direct command; iteki followed by yan with a plural verb stem addresses a plural or respected hearer; iteki with hani softens the directive Nakagawa (2024: 424); Bugaeva (2012: 497); Ijäs (2023).

130.4 Person-marked prohibition and the no-linker

Beyond the bare imperative stem, iteki takes a verb that keeps its person affix. This is regular when a prohibited predicate is linked by no ‘without V-ing’ to a following directive, so that the prohibitive adverb scopes over a fully person-marked clause Nakagawa (2024: 425).

The no linkage ties the prohibitive to the asymmetry of negated subordinate clauses. Takahashi shows for Tokachi that a negated temporal or manner clause selects no and blocks the successive wa, because a negated action is construed as the static state of the action not taking place Takahashi (2016: 75–77). Nakagawa gives the same conditioning from the affirmative side: no links a preceding phrase that is stative, negative in meaning, or an action verb accompanied by a negative element Nakagawa (2024: 340). A prohibitive-headed clause is one such environment; the symmetry of main-clause negation and the subordinate asymmetry are set out in Chapter 126 (Standard Clausal Negation with somo).

Ijäs formulates the classroom rule as ‘do Y without doing X’: the prohibited predicate is linked with no and the following predicate carries the positive directive Ijäs (2023). Her further suggestion, that a wa linker would let the prohibition continue across the next predicate, is offered without a supporting Hokkaido example and is left open ‹speculative›.

130.5 Directive frames after iteki

Iteki feeds the same clause-final directive frames as the affirmative command. Nakagawa lists iteki … yak pirka na, iteki … kusu ne na, iteki … p ne na, and iteki … nankor na Nakagawa (2024: 425). Negative directive force is therefore compatible with conditional, intentive, nominalized, and modalized packaging.

The conditional element yak underlies two adjacent constructions that must be kept apart. In the directive frame iteki … yak pirka na the conditional yak ‘if’ combines with pirka ‘be good’ to deliver a command. The concessive yakka ‘even if’ instead builds the permission frame yakka pirka ‘it is all right even if’, and a permission is negated by the propositional somo, giving ‘you need not V’ rather than a command. The division follows the boundary between propositional negation and negative directive force; the illustrating sentence is constructed in Ijäs’s pedagogical text Ijäs (2023).

130.6 Co-occurrence with somo

Iteki and somo are not in complementary distribution. Nakagawa’s iteki pasirota somo eci=ki nankor na carries both the prohibitive adverb and the propositional negator in one clause Nakagawa (2024: 425). The prohibitive directs the addressee away from an action; the periphrastic somo ki adds clausal negation of the embedded proposition. Each layer contributes its own value, which is why iteki cannot be reduced to an allomorph of the standard negator.

130.7 Apprehensive warnings

Hokkaido Ainu has a set of warning adverbs adjacent to the prohibitive: ika, ikiya, ikia(n)kunak, inkian, and the elevated ikineypeka Nakagawa (2024: 425). They express a cautionary ‘lest, be careful not to’ value, and the verb after them takes ordinary subject person marking, which separates the construction from the bare imperative even where the discourse force approaches a prohibition.

The apprehensive warns that an unwanted event may occur; the prohibitive commands the addressee not to act. Where iteki mokor says ‘do not sleep’, an ikiya clause with a person-marked predicate cautions against an outcome outside the addressee’s direct control Nakagawa (2024: 425).